RONNIE MONTROSE, best known for his fiery guitar work as a member of the band Montrose, died Saturday. It is believed that the cause of death was prostate cancer, which he had been battling for the past few years. He was 64.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Dr. Seuss' The Lorax rules the cineplex with 70 million dollars, blowing away predictions in the mid-40s (which were beased on the receipts for Horton Hears a Who). Indeed, this blows away the 55.1 million opening of The Grinch, a holiday release. Project X placed with 20.8 million against a 12 million budget, which should put into pure profit next weekend. Act of Valor shows with 13.7 million; that's a 44 percent drop, but the Navy SEALS have raked in 45.2 million against a 12 million budget. Safe House holds the fourth spot with 7.2 million, having made 108.2 million domestic so far against an 85 million budget. It looks to be the second biggest movie of Denzel Washington's career. Tyler Perry's Good Deeds rounds out the Top 5 with 7 million, dropping 55 percent in entirely predictable fashion for a Tyler Perry movie.

...with THE ROLLING STONES! Here's a selection of live, semi-live, and undead clips of less-obvious tracks from the band's heyday: "Mercy, Mercy"; "Heart of Stone," "The Last Time"; "Ruby Tuesday," "Paint It Black"; "Honky Tonk Women"; and "Dead Flowers." I always tend to think of this period of the Stones at this time of year for biographical reasons, as these songs (and last friday's Talking Heads) tended to soundtrack the preparations for my high school's Russian banquet.

HOSPITALITY dropped by the Cutting Room Studios in NYC to play an upbeat live set for KEXP. The band gets a profile at Blurt.

VERONICA FALLS bring their underwater vintage sounds to the KEXP studio for an energetic live set.

CUTOUT BIN: From the Monkees to Earth Wind & Fire, from Billy Bragg to the Partridge Family, from Nina Simone to Big Country, plus the Beatles, ELO, Modern Lovers, Edison Lighthouse and more -- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

TERROR in TURKEY: A remote-controlled bomb mounted on a motorbike exploded as it passed close to the Istanbul headquarters of Turkey's ruling AK Party, injuring 10 people. Kurdish separatist groups as well as Islamist militants have carried out similar bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.

SYRIA: The Free Syrian Army retreated from the Bab Amr neighborhood in Homs. The civilian Syrian National Council and the military Free Syrian Army set up a joint command center. A Free Syrian Army commander said Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah brigades were fighting alongside the Syrian army.

AFGHANISTAN must act quickly to tackle infiltration of its security forces or another fatal attack on Western forces could undermine ties with NATO, a senior Afghan defense ministry official said on Wednesday, in a rare admission of the threat within.